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Abstract:

Our presentation focuses on the translation of a late medieval text, Boccaccio’s Decameron, into another vernacular language, namely Modern Greek. We will present the first translation into Greek of a Decameron Tale (VII/7), made by Iakovos Trivolis, a citizen of the Serenissima, in the Greek-speaking island of Corful/ Kerkyra. We will then highlight, from a Translation History perspective, the role of Translation Agency and its impact both on the choice of the target language and its socio-cultural context. Using a Mixed Methods approach, we will explore crucial theoretical notions related to Translation Agency, such as habitus and capital (Bourdieu, Simeoni, Buzzelin etc); extensive biographical and socio-cultural information will be offered as to the translator, the translation agent par excellence; the translation- author dyad will also be briefly touched upon. We shall aim at underscoring, among other things, the importance of translation in the circulation of a (canonical) literary text, the translational exchanges between languages, as well as the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of the specific translation. Targeted textual analysis will be offered, in an effort to corroborate our claims.